Elie Wiesel’s novel Night is required reading in just about every sophomore English class
in the country. The novel, along with a lifetime of humanitarian work, earned Wiesel the Nobel
Peace Prize in 1986. Night is one of the most powerful depictions we have of the Jewish
experience of the Holocaust; a work carefully crafted to achieve Wiesel’s ultimate purpose: to
bear witness to the atrocities and allow the reader to feel the suffering of the Jews and of millions
of others so that in identifying with these characters, the truth seeps into the bone marrow of the
reader and fires a determination to do whatever is necessary that atrocities like this never happen
again.
Wiesel opens the novel with a character sketch of Moshe the Beadle.
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Wiesel is careful to draw us a
complete picture of Moshe: what he is like physically, socially, and psychologically both before
and after the Nazis have gotten hold of him. This allows him to achieve all of the
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As such, it is to Moshe that the main character, Elie, turns for spiritual leadership.
Rebuffed in his quest to study the mystical teachings of the cabbala, Elie seeks out Moshe, who
teaches Elie the secrets of true faith, tenets Elie carries with him throughout the course of the
novel. Moshe tells Elie; “I pray to God that he would give me the strength to ask him questions,”
(pg. 3). Moshe is the opposite of the dogma-driven bigot. To him, faith is asking questions,
seeking: once you think you have answers, you’ve lost your faith. Psychologically, Moshe is a
seeker, a man of faith. This places him squarely in a long line of characters honored in literature
and culture from the beginnings of civilization as we know it.
The portrait Wiesel paints of Moshe is a compelling one: a physically clown-like,
unimposing, deeply spiritual being, we as readers are drawn to him, we like him. This serves
Wiesel’s ultimate purpose well. When we see the havoc the Nazis wreak on Moshe in all three of
these carefully drawn arenas, it is a powerful blow. A reader can’t help but see how heinous
From the small town of Sighet in Transylvania to the huge concentration camps of Auschwitz. Elie Wiesel, the author and victim of the book Night, the horrifying experience of the Holocaust. Wiesel is a 15 year old Jewish boy who was captured by the Germans or “Nazis” during WWII. He went through an overwhelming amount of trauma, like when he got separated from his mother and sisters and watching his father suffer an unbearable amount of pain that eventually killed him. The fact is, power is a tool that can corrupt itself and others, it can ruin people’s lives and it can do that without people even realizing it.
To develop the theme of denial and its consequences, Wiesel uses juxtaposition and characterization. Wiesel uses juxtaposition to develop the theme of indifference and its consequences. Near the beginning of the memoir, Elie’s family is packing for their deportation to Aushwitz. There is absolute chaos, as Wiesel writes, “Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty ground” (15). Unlike the disorder, however, Elie, on the same page, writes, “All this under a magnificent blue sky.”
At times, it appears unviable for one’s life to transform overnight in just a few hours. However, this is something various individuals experienced in soul and flesh as they were impinged by those atrocious memoirs of the Holocaust. In addition, the symbolism portrayed throughout the novel Night, written by Elie Wiesel, presents an effective fathoming of the feelings and thoughts of what it’s like to undergo such an unethical circumstance. For instance, nighttime plays a symbolic figure throughout the progression of the story as its used to symbolize death, darkness of the soul,
In the novel, “Night” Elie Wiesel communicates with the readers his thoughts and experiences during the Holocaust. Wiesel describes his fight for survival and journey questioning god’s justice, wanting an answer to why he would allow all these deaths to occur. His first time subjected into the concentration camp he felt fear, and was warned about the chimneys where the bodies were burned and turned into ashes. Despite being warned by an inmate about Auschwitz he stayed optimistic telling himself a human can’t possibly be that cruel to another human.
It becomes clear that Elie Wiesel`s commentary on human nature is that, during extreme circumstances, people are selfish and would achieve anything for their own survival. Furthermore, In Wiesel’s novel people strived to survive this injustice. For example, the Holocaust caused countless amount of
In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, Eliezer Wiesel narrates the legendary tale of what happened to him and his father during the Holocaust. In the introduction, Wiesel talks about how his village in Seghet was never worried about the war until it was too late. Wiesel’s village received advanced notice of the Germans, but the whole village ignored it. Throughout the entire account, Wiesel has many traits that are key to his survival in the concertation camps.
Wiesel changes vastly throughout the book, whether it is his faith in God, his faith in living, or even the way his mind works. In the beginning of his memoir, Wiesel appeared to be faithful to God and the Jewish religion, but during his time in concentration camps, his faith in God wavered tremendously. Before his life was corrupted, he would praise God even when he was being transferred to Auschwitz, but after living in concentration camps, he began to feel rebellious against his own religion. In the book, Elie
Milos Kulina Elie’s faith towards God changes a lot as the story goes on. In the beginning of the work, his faith in God is complete. In chapter one when asked why he prays to God, he says, “Why did I pray? ... Why did I live?
Wiesel wrote a memoir that ponders his survival of the Holocaust. His book Night embodies the sorrowful mood of what the Jewish
Wiesel makes the claim that the terror of the Holocaust existed in how everyone dehumanized one another. Moshe the Beadle is dehumanized by the people of Sighet. When Moshe comes back to tell them what experienced, Moshe is dehumanized in the way is discredited and shunned. Moshe the Beadle represents dehumanization in the treatment Moshe receives. This process continues in the train when the men on the train beat up Madame Schächter.
In conclusion, this is the reason why I think Elie Wiesel did change by the things that was happening to him at the camp. He wasn’t able to maintain his true self and keeping his belief because of all the stuff that he see. Elie change from him being very religious and studious to him just being empty from the inside. For example, First all wanted to do was learn his religion before he went to the camp. Then, when they went to the camp, he starts to see all the things that 's happening.
He was a well known person in Elie’s community who had almost been captured by the Nazi’s, but luckily escaped. Moshe’s love for God changes and “[he] struggles desperately to believe that God is perpetually at work, even during the massacre of which he was nearly a victim” (Nurick, “Identity” paragraph 1). Moshe was once a man with a strong faith in God, but after seeing many awful things happen such as, people being killed and tortured and babies getting thrown in the air to be used as targets, he struggles to believe in God. He often pondered whether God was real, and if he was, why would he let such awful things happen to innocent people? It didn’t make sense.
Elie Wiesel’s Experiences In the book Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his experiences of the Holocaust. Throughout this experience, Elie Wiesel is exposed to life he previously thought unimaginable and they consequently change his life. He becomes To begin with, Elie Wiesel learns that beings aware and mindful are more than just important. On many occasions, he receives warnings and hints toward the impending tragedy.
The memoir Night written by Holocaust survivor Eliezer Wiesel is a recollection of the Holocaust. In the memoir Eliezer describes his experience during the height of the Holocaust near the end of the second World War. A time of concentration camps and prejudice on Jews from the Germans/Nazis. In Eliezer’s memoir he uses literary devices to help bring his experience to life for the audience. Using similes, metaphors, irony, symbolism, imagery, and so much more.
Night Critical Abdoul Bikienga Johann Schiller once said “It is not flesh and blood, but the heart which makes us fathers and sons”. But what happens when the night darkens our hearts our hearts? The Holocaust memoir Night does a phenomenal job of portraying possibly the most horrifying outcomes in such a situation. Through subtle and effective language, Wiesel is able to put into words the fearsome experiences he and his father went through in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. In his holocaust memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel utilizes imagery to show the effect that self-preservation can have on father son relationships.